“The New York Times (NYT) is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by the New York Times Company. It has won 114 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. The paper’s print version has the largest circulation of any metropolitan newspaper in the United States, and the second-largest circulation overall, behind The Wall Street Journal. It is ranked 39th in the world by circulation. Following industry trends, its weekday circulation has fallen to fewer than one million daily since 1990. Nicknamed for years as “The Gray Lady”, The New York Times is long regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”. It is owned by The New York Times Company. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., (whose family (Ochs-Sulzberger) has controlled the paper for five generations, since 1896), is both the paper’s publisher and the company’s chairman. Its international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the International New York Times. The paper’s motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page.” (Wikipedia)

(1) Vulnerability Description:

The New York Times has a computer cyber security problem. Hacker can exploit its users by XSS bugs.

The code program flaw occurs at New York Times’s URLs. Nytimes (short for New York Times) uses part of the URLs to construct its pages. However, it seems that Nytimes does not filter the content used for the construction at all before 2013.

Based on Nytimes’s Design, Almost all URLs before 2013 are affected (All pages of articles). In fact, all article pages that contain “PRINT” button, “SINGLE PAGE” button, “Page *” button, “NEXT PAGE” button are affected.

Nytimes changed this mechanism since 2013. It decodes the URLs sent to its server. This makes the mechanism much safer now.

However, all URLs before 2013 are still using the old mechanism. This means almost all article pages before 2013 are still vulnerable to XSS attacks. I guess the reason Nytimes does not filter URLs before is cost. It costs too much (money & human capital) to change the database of all posted articles before.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications. XSS enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.

“Hackers are constantly experimenting with a wide repertoire of hacking techniques to compromise websites and web applications and make off with a treasure trove of sensitive data including credit card numbers, social security numbers and even medical records. Cross-site Scripting (also known as XSS or CSS) is generally believed to be one of the most common application layer hacking techniques Cross-site Scripting allows an attacker to embed malicious JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML, or Flash into a vulnerable dynamic page to fool the user, executing the script on his machine in order to gather data. The use of XSS might compromise private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be mistaken for those of a valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is usually formatted as a hyperlink containing malicious content and which is distributed over any possible means on the internet.” (Acunetix)

The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed on Firefox (34.0) in Ubuntu (14.04) and IE (9.0.15) in Windows 8.

Websites information:“lxr.mozilla.org, mxr.mozilla.org are cross references designed to display the Mozilla source code. The sources displayed are those that are currently checked in to the mainline of the mozilla.org CVS server, Mercurial Server, and Subversion Server; these pages are updated many times a day, so they should be pretty close to the latest‑and‑greatest.” (from Mozilla)

“Mozilla is a free-software community which produces the Firefox web browser. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. In addition to the Firefox browser, Mozilla also produces Thunderbird, Firefox Mobile, the Firefox OS mobile operating system, the bug tracking system Bugzilla and a number of other projects.” (Wikipedia)

(1) Vulnerability description:Mozilla website has a computer cyber security problem. Hacker can attack it by XSS bugs. Here is the description of XSS: “Hackers are constantly experimenting with a wide repertoire of hacking techniques to compromise websites and web applications and make off with a treasure trove of sensitive data including credit card numbers, social security numbers and even medical records. Cross-site Scripting (also known as XSS or CSS) is generally believed to be one of the most common application layer hacking techniques Cross-site Scripting allows an attacker to embed malicious JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML, or Flash into a vulnerable dynamic page to fool the user, executing the script on his machine in order to gather data. The use of XSS might compromise private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be mistaken for those of a valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is usually formatted as a hyperlink containing malicious content and which is distributed over any possible means on the internet.” (Acunetix)

This means all URLs under the above two domains can be used for XSS attacks targeting Mozilla’s users.

Since there are large number of pages under them. Meanwhile, the contents of the two domains vary. This makes the vulnerability very dangerous. Attackers can use different URLs to design XSS attacks to Mozilla’s variety class of users.

“The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest selling English-language daily in the world according to Audit Bureau of Circulations (India). According to the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2012, the Times of India is the most widely read English newspaper in India with a readership of 7.643 million. This ranks the Times of India as the top English daily in India by readership. It is owned and published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. which is owned by the Sahu Jain family. In the Brand Trust Report 2012, Times of India was ranked 88th among India’s most trusted brands and subsequently, according to the Brand Trust Report 2013, Times of India was ranked 100th among India’s most trusted brands. In 2014 however, Times of India was ranked 174th among India’s most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report 2014, a study conducted by Trust Research Advisory.” (en.Wikipedia.org)

(2) Vulnerability description:

The web application indiatimes.com online website has a security problem. Hacker can exploit it by XSS bugs.

The code flaw occurs at Indiatimes’s URL links. Indiatimes only filter part of the filenames in its website. All URLs under Indiatimes’s “photogallery” and “top-llists” topics are affected.

Indiatimes uses part of the links under “photogallery” and “top-llists” topics to construct its website content without any checking of those links at all. This mistake is very popular in nowaday websites. Developer is not security expert.

The vulnerability can be attacked without user login. Tests were performed on Mozilla Firefox (26.0) in Ubuntu (12.04) and Microsoft IE (9.0.15) in Windows 7.

“Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks are a type of injection, in which malicious scripts are injected into otherwise benign and trusted web sites. XSS attacks occur when an attacker uses a web application to send malicious code, generally in the form of a browser side script, to a different end user. Flaws that allow these attacks to succeed are quite widespread and occur anywhere a web application uses input from a user within the output it generates without validating or encoding it.” (OWASP)

(3) Vulnerability Disclosure:

The vulnerabilities were reported to Indiatimes in early September, 2014. However they are still unpatched.

“6kbbs V8.0 is a PHP + MySQL built using high-performance forum, has the code simple, easy to use, powerful, fast and so on. It is an excellent community forum program. The program is simple but not simple; fast, small; Interface generous and good scalability; functional and practical pursuing superior performance, good interface, the user’s preferred utility functions.”

“1, using XHTML + CSS architecture, so that the structure of the page, saving transmission static page code, but also easy to modify the interface, more in line with WEB standards; 2, the Forum adopted Cookies, Session, Application and other technical data cache on the forum, reducing access to the database to improve the performance of the Forum. Can carry more users simultaneously access; 3, the data points table function, reduce the burden on the amount of data when accessing the database; 4, support for multi-skin style switching function; 5, the use of RSS technology to support subscriptions forum posts, recent posts, user’s posts; 6, the display frame mode + tablet mode, the user can choose according to their own preferences to; 7. forum page optimization keyword search, so the forum more easily indexed by search engines; 8, extension, for our friends to provide a forum for a broad expansion of space services; 9, webmasters can add different top and bottom of the ad, depending on the layout; 10, post using HTML + UBB way the two editors, mutual conversion, compatible with each other; …”

(2) Vulnerability Details:

6kbbs web application has a computer cyber security bug problem. It can be exploited by CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) attacks. This may allow an attacker to trick the victim into clicking on the image to take advantage of the trust relationship between the authenticated victim and the application. Such an attack could trick the victim into creating files that may then be called via a separate CSRF attack or possibly other means, and executed in the context of their session with the application, without further prompting or verification.

Several 6kbbs products 0-day vulnerabilities have been found by some other bug hunter researchers before. 6kbbs has patched some of them. Open Sourced Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) is an independent and open-sourced database. The goal of the project is to provide accurate, detailed, current, and unbiased technical information on security vulnerabilities. The project promotes greater, open collaboration between companies and individuals. It has published suggestions, advisories, solutions details related to csrf vulnerabilities.

(2.1) The first code programming flaw occurs at “/portalchannel_ajax.php?” page with “&id” and &code” parameters in HTTP $POST.

(2.2) The second code programming flaw occurs at “/admin.php?” page with “&fileids” parameter in HTTP $POST.

NetCat.ru is russian local company. “NetCat designed to create an absolute majority of the types of sites: from simple “business card” with a minimum content to complex web-based systems, from corporate offices to online stores, libraries or media data – in other words, projects completely different directions and at any level of complexity. View examples of sites running on NetCat CMS can be in a special section.”

“Manage the site on the basis of NetCat can even inexperienced user, because it does not require knowledge of Internet technologies, programming and markup languages. NetCat constantly improving, adds new features. In the process of finalizing necessarily take into account the wishes of our partners and clients, as well as trends in Internet development. More than 2,000 studios and private web developers have chosen for their projects is NetCat, and in 2013 sites, successfully working on our CMS, created more than 18,000.”

(2) Vulnerability Details:

NetCat web application has a computer security bug problem. It can be exploited by HTTP Response Splitting (CRLF) attacks. This could allow a remote attacker to insert arbitrary HTTP headers, which are included in a response sent to the server. If an application does not properly filter such a request, it could be used to inject additional headers that manipulate cookies, authentication status, or more.

Several other similar products 0-day vulnerabilities have been found by some other bug hunter researchers before. NetCat has patched some of them. CXSECurity is a huge collection of information on data communications safety. Its main objective is to inform about errors in various applications. It also publishes suggestions, advisories, solutions details related to CRLF vulnerabilities and cyber intelligence recommendations.

(2.1) The first code flaw occurs at “/post.php” page with “redirect_url” parameter by adding “%0d%0a%20”.

(2.2) The second code flaw occurs at “redirect.php?” page with “url” parameter by adding “%0d%0a%20”.

“6kbbs V8.0 is a PHP + MySQL built using high-performance forum, has the code simple, easy to use, powerful, fast and so on. It is an excellent community forum program. The program is simple but not simple; fast, small; Interface generous and good scalability; functional and practical pursuing superior performance, good interface, the user’s preferred utility functions. Forum Technical realization (a) interface : using XHTML + CSS structure, so the structure of the page , easy to modify the interface ; save the transmission static page code , greatly reducing the amount of data transmitted over the network ; improve the interface scalability , more in line with WEB standards, support Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera and other major browsers. (b) Program : The ASP + ACCESS mature technology , the installation process is extremely simple , the environment is also very common.”

“(1) PHP version : (a) 6kbbs V8.0 start using PHP + MySQL architecture. (b) Currently ( July 2010 ) is still in the testing phase , 6kbbs V8.0 is the latest official release. (2) ASP Version: 6kbbs (6k Forum) is an excellent community forum process . The program is simple but not simple ; fast , small ; interface generous and good scalability ; functional and practical . pursue superiority , good interface , practical functions of choice for subscribers.”

(2) Vulnerability Details:

6kbbs web application has a computer security problem. It can be exploited by weak encryption attacks. The software stores or transmits sensitive data using an encryption scheme that is theoretically sound, but is not strong enough for the level of protection required. A weak encryption scheme can be subjected to brute force attacks that have a reasonable chance of succeeding using current attack methods and resources.

Several 6kbbs products 0-day web cyber bugs have been found by some other bug hunter researchers before. 6kbbs has patched some of them. “The Full Disclosure mailing list is a public forum for detailed discussion of vulnerabilities and exploitation techniques, as well as tools, papers, news, and events of interest to the community. FD differs from other security lists in its open nature and support for researchers’ right to decide how to disclose their own discovered bugs. The full disclosure movement has been credited with forcing vendors to better secure their products and to publicly acknowledge and fix flaws rather than hide them. Vendor legal intimidation and censorship attempts are not tolerated here!” A great many of the web securities have been published here.

We can see that “userpass” stored in cookie was encrypted using “$userpass” user password directly. And there is no “HttpOnly” attribute at all. Since md5 is used for the encryption, it is easy for hackers to break the encrypted message.

“The MD5 message-digest cryptography algorithm is a widely used cryptographic hash function producing a 128-bit (16-byte) hash value, typically expressed in text format as a 32 digit hexadecimal number. Papers about it have been published on Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt and Crypto. Meanwhile, researchers focusing on it spread in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, IEEE and Mathematics. MD5 has been utilized in a wide variety of cryptographic applications, and is also commonly used to verify data integrity. MD5 was designed by Ronald Rivest in 1991 to replace an earlier hash function, MD4. The source code in RFC 1321 contains a “by attribution” RSA license.” (Wikipedia)